Flight operations to Dubai to return to normal from Sunday

New Delhi: Air operations from India to Dubai, which were affected after an Emirates flight crash landed at Dubai International Airport on Wednesday, are expected to return to normal from Sunday. While budget carrier SpiceJet said it is operating all nine flight to Dubai from Saturday, Air India, Jet Airways and IndiGo said they will resume full flight schedule from Sunday.

“SpiceJet’s Dubai operations are normal from today. All nine flights from India will fly as per schedule,” SpiceJet tweeted on Saturday. Indian carriers had curtailed their services to the Gulf’s trade hub following the limited availability of runway due to the crash landing of the Emirates’ flight from Thiruvananthapuram at Dubai airport on August 3.

“Due to partial slot availability at Dubai on August 6, IndiGo is operating a curtailed schedule with seven flights, of the total 11, to and fro Dubai,” IndiGo said in a statement. IndiGo will resume full flight schedule of all 11 flights to and from Dubai effective August 7, it said.

“All our flights to and from Dubai (except from Mangalore) will operate as per schedule from Sunday,” Jet Airways said, adding, “The Dubai-Mangalore flight (9W 531) will depart from Sharjah”. Air India also said the airline will resume its full flight schedule to Dubai from Sunday.

Operations at Dubai airport were on Wednesday suspended immediately after a packed Emirates flight from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai crash-landed and exploded on the runway, shutting down one of the world’s busiest airports.

The Emirates flight, with 282 passengers and 18 crew members on board, had departed at 10.19 AM from Thiruvananthapuram International Airport and was scheduled to land at 12.50 PM at Dubai International Airport where it met with a mishap.

Around 10 passengers were treated for smoke inhalation and burn injuries at a hospital after the accident and only one person was admitted for long-term treatment, local media had said.

The incident was the most serious to date for Emirates, it being the only loss for the airline since it started operations in 1985. The Boeing B 777-300 plane which was involved in the accident was 13 years old.